Many forms of network systems, using wireless and/or wireline communication links provided by various networks, are in widespread use today. In particular, network systems are commonly used to facilitate communication of data, voice, images, and/or other information (collectively referred to herein as data communication) between individuals and/or devices (e.g., computers, mobile telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet devices, network appliances, etc.). The network communication links may be provided by various network configurations, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN), cellular telephony networks, cable transmission networks, personal area networks (PANs), local area networks (LANs), metropolitan area networks (MANs), wide area networks (WANs), the Internet, etc., and combinations thereof.
The infrastructure deployed to provide network configurations facilitating data communication may present significant challenges with respect to its management. For example, a typical broadband wireless access (BWA) network, in which various mobile processor-based devices such as computers, smart phones, and PDAs are provided broadband data communication, often include a large number of geographically dispersed network elements (e.g., base stations, access points, mobility management entities, gateways, routers, switches, etc.) which are generally supplied by different manufacturers. Although the various manufacturers may provide a centralized means by which operational data may be collected from their respective network elements for analysis and management of those network elements by a network operator, different ones of such network element management means are generally required for managing the network elements from the different manufacturers. That is, the network element management means have heretofore not provided a performance management solution which is unified with respect to all, or a significant number, of the different network elements (i.e., network elements from different manufacturers or otherwise providing different or proprietary management data interfaces).
In addition to failing to provide a unified performance management solution, the network element management means available today typically provide a relatively simple alarm condition type model. For example, many vendor's network element management solutions provide fixed thresholds for use with respect to monitored parameters, wherein if a monitored parameter is determined to have crossed the corresponding threshold an associated alarm condition is initiated. The use of such fixed thresholds fails to provide adaptability to time varying conditions, such as the time varying environment and channel conditions often experienced with respect to wireless communication links. Moreover, the alarms initiated through the use of such thresholds provide notification of an network operational symptom, but fail to provide any indication of the root cause of the issue. Accordingly, network management personnel is left to work with multiple different network element management means, and any alarm messages regarding their respective network elements, to puzzle together a view of the network operation and management its performance.